THE GENETIC EXPLOITATION OF WHEAT FOR DIFFERENT YIELD RELATED TRAITS BY PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

The research was conducted to assess the genetic variability, pattern of grouping, and to search out the diverse genotypes for improvement of wheat germplasm for yield. The germplasm was collected from different research institutes like AARI, NIBGE and UAF. The important wheat parameters for which the data were recorded were days to heading, days to maturity, height of the plants, peduncle length, length of the spikes, width of leaves, length of leaves, area of leaves, spikelets number per spike, grains number per spike, weight of grains per spike, tillers number per plant, weight of thousand grains, and the yield per plant. The results showed the analysis of variance had significant values for all traits. Multivariate analysis was used to unlock genetic diversity present within germplasm. The first and second PC being the most diverse components showed 28.4 and 42.2% of variation during 2013-14. Biplot based on the 2013-14 data collected represented that days to heading, peduncle length, spike length, flag leaf area, 1000-grain weight and number of spikelets per spike contributed greatly in diversity. Graph based on the 2013-14 data recorded showed that genotypes Karawan-2, N-50, N-42, BAYA’S, PBW-450, AS-2002, Nacozari, Pastor, Kareiga, N-3, CHAM-4, NING-8319, A-6, Kohistan-97, FSD-08, Chakwal-97, GA-2002, B-119, Sandal, T.D-1, N-63, Pirsabak-2005, Mexipak-65 and Punjab-81 were present at distance from other varieties with respect to PC-1 and PC-2, so these were more diverse genotypes and could be used for improvement of wheat germplasm for further breeding program.